All your Homebase are belong to... you! / The House 'n' Home Thread. - The Bear and Badger

acemuzzy

g.man wrote:

Taken all fecking weekend to strip it all down, clean it all, box it all up, transport it all over here, and fecking set it all up again, but huzzah! I now have sound and vision!

another step closer!

g.man

Looks lovely mate, good job!

Diluted Dante

At one stage I was going to put in a coffee table almost exactly like that to the image from before.

g.man

Cheers Muzz. Took the executive decision to bin all the 5.1 pish and just downsize to stereo. Fuck having all those extra wires and speakers everywhere! Hardly ever use them anyhoo.
Starting to feel more like a home now

Just need my bedroom furniture to arrive and I’m in!

g.man

Think I’m finally going to bin my redundant CD collection, and upgrade to a new iPad with mahoosive memory. That way I can get my entire digital library on it and just stream my music to the hifi over Bluetooth.
Bought me this little Bluetooth receiver that plugs into the hifi and brings the old system into the 21st century.

Seems to work like a charm anyhoo.

FranticPea

Looking great g.

One problem. You seem to have blocked the serving hatch, and now you'll have to eat your meals stood up in the kitchen.

Unlikely

That's looking good. I did a similar thing with a bluetooth receiver about 10 years ago. Kickass amp that I bought from a friend is connected to two speakers that came with my parents' Pioneer stereo separates rack that they bought forty years ago. Whole setup works great.

g.man

Aye, it’s an elegantly simple solution to a modern problem if you’ve got legacy hifi kit worth holding on to.

g.man

FranticPea wrote:

Looking great g.

One problem. You seem to have blocked the serving hatch, and now you'll have to eat your meals stood up in the kitchen.

I gave up eating months ago. I’ll be reet.

Kow

Instant house.

acemuzzy

Very keen to know whether that Bluetooth receiver can launch 4OD

g.man

davyK

g.man wrote:

Think I’m finally going to bin my redundant CD collection, and upgrade to a new iPad with mahoosive memory. That way I can get my entire digital library on it and just stream my music to the hifi over Bluetooth. Bought me this little Bluetooth receiver that plugs into the hifi and brings the old system into the 21st century. Seems to work like a charm anyhoo.

Bought one of these (different make - yours looks more up market) a while back and I love it. Breathes new life into a hifi assembly. I can't bring myself to bin my CDs though...I've been toying with getting a Brennan or similar though. I like curating a physical collection as makes it individual - a reflection of me - instead of "just" having a digital sub. I know one can make playlists and the like but....I'm holding on too tight probably.

Your room looks great and comfortable at the same time.

g.man

Aye cheers Davy, the Audioengine B1 is definitely at the pricier end of the market, but at £170, and absolutely rave reviews everywhere I looked, it was a no-brainer for me. The sound quality on my old Tag McLaren system via Bluetooth still sounds absolutely mint to my ears. I'll probably downsize my speakers eventually though.

The Mission 753's are still incredible pieces of kit, but to get the best out of them I'd be incurring the wrath of everyone in the neighbourhood.
I did look into the Brennan, but when you go into all the in-depth Facs on their site, there were just too many shortcomings for me.
I'm just planning on dropping a grand on the new iPad Pro with a Terabyte of built in storage, and that will give me enough space to rip my entire digital music library from my office Mac to the iPad then just stream to the hifi with Bluetooth. Also, I can claim the iPad as a business expense, so it's win win.

The old fart in me would hang on to the CD collection, but moving is a great opportunity to at least weed out the wheat from the chafe. Should really just bin them all really.

FranticPea

I found it very hard to ditch my CD collection. Kept a couple of rare ones, and a few box sets that I couldn't bear to part with but I've not touched them in years.

g.man

Aye, I feel your pain mate. It's a lifetime of memories...just gathering dust. I'll probably do similar and keep a crate of the good stuff, and just bin the rest off to Oxfam.

Unlikely

Everyone should remember and still own their first CD. Mine was No Prayer for the Dying by Iron Maiden.

FranticPea

g.man wrote:

It's a lifetime of memories...

Countless trips to Virgin Megastore and HMV in Manchester on the bus as a teen with enough cash to buy a new album and a baked potato.

FranticPea

Unlikely wrote:

Everyone should remember and still own their first CD. Mine was No Prayer for the Dying by Iron Maiden.

First CD was Angel Dust by Faith no More. Already had it on cassette but had inherited my sisters old stereo that had a cd player.

g.man

Arc-Weld. Neil Young triple live album that you only got the Arc disc with if you bought the CD edition.

g.man

FranticPea wrote:

g.man wrote:

It's a lifetime of memories...

Countless trips to Virgin Megastore and HMV in Manchester on the bus as a teen with enough cash to buy a new album and a baked potato.

Unlikely

Similar but it was to One Up on Diamond Street (that's sadly long gone). Have money will bus and buy CD.

poprock

g.man wrote:

Aye, I feel your pain mate. It's a lifetime of memories...just gathering dust. I'll probably do similar and keep a crate of the good stuff, and just bin the rest off to Oxfam.

I’m still happy that mine have all gone. Felt like a good move, and still does. Now that it’s all digitised though … having reliable backups feels really important.

(I think I kept 17 CDs out of around 1,000, if I remember right. Not really sure why. I just sort of felt that I shouldn’t be left with none at all.)

davyK

At some time I will digitise for convenience. But not sure what I would do with the discs as I like to "own" it and have a backup. I use Amazon music quite a bit as I get that with Prime. I don't buy many CDs any more either. I have plenty of room but it's always good to get rid of clutter. They are worthless re selling too. I checked some prices out on the likes of music magpie etc and I wouldn't sell to them on principal such was their low buy price.

Several years ago I ripped a few batches of CDs using iTunes on my PC for copying to my iPod and it was very handy playing it on a laptop anywhere in the house using the wifi. I liked the fact that iTunes just worked without any fannying about. Using an iPad for that would be neat, esp bluetoothing to a good old hifi setup.

I like the look of the Brennan because it's just such a small neat looking solution but I haven't looked at it in detail. I currently have an old 5 disc NAD carousel player which is becoming very moody - must be 25 years old now... One feature of the Brennan I fancy is the multi-room functionality with different rooms having different music sent to them, but I'm sure there's specialist hifi gizmos to do that too.

The old carousel was great for parties but party play = streaming nowadays so I'm considering going up market and get a higher end dedicated player just for me.

g.man

The Brennan has a tonne of issues hidden away in the FACS on their website Davy. Well worth reading up on if you're thinking of buying one. I'm pretty sure it rips at an incredibly low bitrate as well.
It's a nice piece of kit, but there were just too many buts for me.

Funkstain

And surely Davy someone of your tech savvy can just rip CDs to a NAS drive and make that your music library for your streaming system of choice? Everything under your control then

stonechalice

You've done a banging job with your living space there G. Very tasteful.

davyK

Funkstain wrote:

And surely Davy someone of your tech savvy can just rip CDs to a NAS drive and make that your music library for your streaming system of choice? Everything under your control then

Yeah I could but where's the craic in that when I can buy a shiny gizmo instead??

You are right of course, and I'm gradually coming to that realisation.

A nice pair of floor standing speakers in on my list too.

n0face

G.man, if you're ever thinking of letting those missions go give me a shout.

davyK

My hifi needs a major upgrade. Have an old Mission amp with the NAD disc player and turntable and ancient Mission shelf speakers. All > 20 years old. Have a DAB/IR/podcast player that is modern but everything is long overdue replacing.

poprock

Since this has temporarily turned into the hi-fi thread …

When it turned out that I was playing most of my music from iTunes, I stopped caring so much about physical media.

When it turned out I wasn’t using physical media, I got rid of the equipment and only kept an amp and speakers - with iTunes and my TV as the only input sources.

When I moved into a smaller flat, I replaced the big speakers with a soundbar type thing, and dumped the amp as well. Sacrificing sound quality for convenience.

Now, in a bigger house I want music in multiple rooms, so I swapped for a Sonos system. Essentially the soundbar becomes my main speaker and I have speakers in other rooms that I can switch to. I liked it a lot - for both quality and convenience - so I dove in deeper and expanded to a 5.1 setup for the big telly and single other speakers dotted around the house.

One day I might add more, putting stereo pairs in a couple of rooms instead of single speakers.

The Sonos system is great so long as you’re happy buying into their gear. It’s totally possible to buy a Sonos amp and hook your existing speakers up to it if you want to, but the Sonos quality is more than good enough for me.

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